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Otakon 2005: The Aftermath Part II Final Thoughts

I needed to get out of the office for lunch today, so I proceeded to a Corner Bakery and had a salad. Today I was listening to my Otakon 2005 playlist on my iPod and had a couple of things strike me as particularly memorable. One of them was just my own vanity at the reaction I got from the crowd for my rendition of Shizukana Yoruni. Probably just my imagination, but I think people actually liked it. Even if they didn’t, it was still a lot of fun singing it.

The other thing that struck me is just how much the young people of today are different from the way we were in my younger days. I went to the Otaku dance on Friday night and observed a number of interesting things. The crowd was divided into several distinct groups. There were couples dancing together, most of these appeared to be people who already knew each other fairly well. There were groups of two or more women dancing together. These women appeared to be just friends, but danced with a familiarity similar to the couples. Another grouping consisted of men dancing in groups of three or more. The men tended to dance in circular groupings and were not as familiar as the similar female groupings. At the fringes there were men and women dancing solo, though the men doing this appeared to outnumber the women.

In the main room there were also two large areas were some very skilled black and Asian men were competitively breakdancing. There were a lot of people who appeared to spend the evening watching this. These groupings were repeated on a smaller scale in the room where the rave party was going on.

So what’s the point? The point is freedom. All of the aforementioned people were just doing what they wanted and having fun. In the past, a dance consisted of couples dancing, the occasional strangers hooking up and everyone else standing or sitting along the wall either hoping to be asked to dance, if female, or working up the courage to ask someone to dance, if male. But the kids today have not been raised with such restrictive gender dictated roles. Watching all of this I had the feeling that the human race had actually made some progress and I felt very proud of it.

I needed to get out of the office for lunch today, so I proceeded to a Corner Bakery and had a salad. Today I was listening to my Otakon 2005 playlist on my iPod and had a couple of things strike me as particularly memorable. One of them was just my own vanity at the reaction I got from the crowd for my rendition of Shizukana Yoruni. Probably just my imagination, but I think people actually liked it. Even if they didn’t, it was still a lot of fun singing it.

The other thing that struck me is just how much the young people of today are different from the way we were in my younger days. I went to the Otaku dance on Friday night and observed a number of interesting things. The crowd was divided into several distinct groups. There were couples dancing together, most of these appeared to be people who already knew each other fairly well. There were groups of two or more women dancing together. These women appeared to be just friends, but danced with a familiarity similar to the couples. Another grouping consisted of men dancing in groups of three or more. The men tended to dance in circular groupings and were not as familiar as the similar female groupings. At the fringes there were men and women dancing solo, though the men doing this appeared to outnumber the women.

In the main room there were also two large areas were some very skilled black and Asian men were competitively breakdancing. There were a lot of people who appeared to spend the evening watching this. These groupings were repeated on a smaller scale in the room where the rave party was going on.

So what’s the point? The point is freedom. All of the aforementioned people were just doing what they wanted and having fun. In the past, a dance consisted of couples dancing, the occasional strangers hooking up and everyone else standing or sitting along the wall either hoping to be asked to dance, if female, or working up the courage to ask someone to dance, if male. But the kids today have not been raised with such restrictive gender dictated roles. Watching all of this I had the feeling that the human race had actually made some progress and I felt very proud of it.

2 replies on “Otakon 2005: The Aftermath Part II Final Thoughts”

[…] The delicious naughtyness reached its peak at the Meltdown dance, which, like last year, got started late, though not as late as before. As I’ve written before, dancing today isn’t what it used to be. Most people end up watching people show off their moves solo, or dance solo, perhaps near some other friends. One girl to one guy dancing seems to have become rather uncommon at these conventions. So I didn’t waste time looking for any dance partners. I just wanted to dance, so I found a spot and just started to shake it. Dancing in drag turned out to be a lot of fun, and I guess a few other people thought so too, as before long I seemed to have a number of guys show up nearby. I really don’t know how many thought I was a real girl because no one asked, but I did have the impression that people were checking me out. Sorry to disappoint, but I did appreciate the consideration. It was dark, they were drunk, nuff said… […]

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